Weekend Event Planner

These are the 10 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

It's a music-heavy weekend in and around Dallas, with each of the five options on our list featuring classic acts of some kind. Among your other choices are a documentary film festival, a new local theater production, a vintage airplane show, a visit from a best-selling author, and an arts and music festival.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time Thursday through Monday. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, October 5

Dallas VideoFest presents DocuFest
The annual DocuFest, presented by Dallas VideoFest, will feature 23 feature length and short documentaries over four days. All screenings will take place on one screen, giving attendees the opportunity to view every film in the festival. Notable screenings include Alan Govenar’s new Extraordinary Ordinary People, the world premiere of Badass Beauty Queen, and Ex Libris by Frederick Weisman. The festival will take place at Studio Movie Grill Northwest Highway through Sunday.

Theatre Three presents Adding Machine
Adding Machine, a musical adaptation of Elmer Rice's incendiary 1923 play, tells the story of Mr. Zero, who, after 25 years of service to his company, is replaced by a mechanical adding machine. In a vengeful rage, he murders his boss. An eclectic score gives passionate voice to this stylish and stylized show, which follows Zero's journey to the afterlife in the Elysian Fields, where he is met with one last chance for romance and redemption. Theatre Three will present the musical through October 22.

Rick Springfield and Richard Marx in concert
Heartthrobs Rick Springfield and Richard Marx were two of the biggest stars of the 1980s, with their big hair and big songs setting the tone for pop music of the day. The singers will join forces at Majestic Theatre for a stripped-down storyteller's acoustic concert featuring hits like Springfield's "Jessie’s Girl," Marx's "Right Here Waiting," and many more.

Friday, October 6

Commemorative Air Force presents Wings Over Dallas WWII Airshow
The big highlight of this year's Wings Over Dallas WWII Airshow will be a 75th anniversary commemoration of the Doolittle Raid, featuring a flying re-enactment with eight B-25 bombers, pyrotechnics, sound effects, and narration. Texas native Dick Cole, who, at age 101, is the last surviving Doolittle Raider, will be on hand. The air show, taking place through Sunday at Dallas Executive Airport, will feature more than 80 World War II-era aircraft.

Arts & Letters Live: Dan Brown
Dan Brown, the international bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code and Inferno, will appear for the first time at DMA Arts & Letters Live. He'll discuss his new novel, Origin, writing chart-topping works, and making blockbuster movies, as well as his trademark interests in codes, science, religion, and art. Origin thrusts Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon into the dangerous intersection of humankind’s two most enduring questions and the earthshaking discovery that will answer them. The event will take place at McFarlin Auditorium on the SMU campus.

Cake in concert
Alternative rock band Cake has defined its own sound over the past 20 or so years, hitting it big with songs like "The Distance," "Never There," and "Sick of You." Unlike most bands that start hot and fade away, Cake has only gotten more popular over the years, with a 2011 album, Showroom of Compassion, being their first No. 1 album of their career. Cake will play at South Side Ballroom.

Saturday, October 7

Cottonwood Art Festival
The semi-annual Cottonwood Art Festival is a two-day event that brings music, art, food, and creativity to Cottonwood Park. The show will feature museum-quality exhibits from more than 240 artists around the country, live musical performances, an interactive children’s area, and delectable dining choices. The festival will take place through Sunday.

Laid Back Festival featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Laid Back Festival, a traveling celebration of music and food, will make its way to the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving. Lynyrd Skynyrd and Jimmie Vaughan & The Tilt-a-Whirl Band featuring Lou Ann Barton will headline the main, “Laid Back” stage, while The Texas Gentlemen, Bishop Gunn, and Jaimoe's Jasssz Band will keep the party going on the more intimate “Low Country” Plaza stage, named for the late co-founder Gregg Allman’s solo album, Low Country Blues.

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in concert
Husband and wife Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are such luminaries in country music that it's easy to forget they're not as active as they used to be. McGraw's last album was 2015's Damn Country Music, while Hill's last major release was all the way back in 2005 with Fireflies. This is the first time Hill has toured since 2007, when she and McGraw teamed up for the Soul2Soul II Tour. They'll play at American Airlines Center.

Sunday, October 8

State Fair of Texas Concert Series: Wilson Phillips
As you make your way around Fair Park on Sunday, enjoying oodles of fried food, rides, animal races, butter sculptures, and more, you can also stop by to see a blast from the past, Wilson Phillips. The all-female trio was huge in the early '90s thanks to hits like "Hold On" and "Release Me," and have enjoyed a bit of a resurgence thanks to their appearance in the 2011 movie Bridesmaids.

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill will perform at American Airlines Center on October 7.

Photo by Becky Fluke

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill will perform at American Airlines Center on October 7.

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Movie Review

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere sees rock star at his lowest

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Jeremy Allen White in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.

Music biopics are notoriously tricky to pull off because the stories of well-known musicians/bands tend to follow similar trajectories. Some — like the Amy Winehouse film Back to Black — have followed the discovery-to-star arc. Others, like the Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown, have kept the focus tighter to try to reveal something richer about a particular artist.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere takes the latter track, meeting up with Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White) when he’s already an established star, finishing up his tour for his 1980 album, The River. Exhausted, he retreats to his New Jersey home, where he soon starts writing songs for what will become his next album, Nebraska, featuring stripped-down tunes that are a far cry from previous hits like “Born to Run” and “Hungry Heart.”

Working with producer Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) and guitar tech/friend Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser), Springsteen records songs in his bedroom with equipment that is purposefully not state-of-the-art. In his spare time, he also starts dating single mother Faye Romano (Odessa Young) while trying to fight off feelings of depression that affect how he views his music, his family, and the world around him.

Written and directed by Scott Cooper, and based on the book Deliver Me from Nowhere by Warren Zanes, the film comes off as kind of like the Nebraska of music biopics in that it has a variety of effective moments but also others that are head-scratching. As documented by Zanes and in the film, Springsteen wrote the songs for Nebraska and many of those for his most iconic album, Born in the U.S.A., at the same time, and the process of seeing them come to life is interesting if slightly mundane.

However, Cooper’s focus appears to be more on Springsteen’s mental state at the time, which often overshadows the music. Cooper brings in flashback scenes detailing Springsteen’s abusive father (Stephen Graham), which play well except when it comes to connecting his memories with how he’s currently acting. Too often it seems as if Springsteen is merely a stereotypical temperamental artist experiencing mood swings instead of something more complex.

It’s also unclear why Cooper created the fictional character of Faye, as her relationship with Springsteen never adds anything to his personal or musical story. The better relationship depicted in the film is the one Springsteen has with Landau, who serves as a guiding force and protector. In fact, a deeper dive into why Springsteen trusted him so much and why Landau was so devoted to him might have been warranted.

White doesn’t particularly resemble Springsteen in any way, but he still turns in a good performance, especially when he’s emulating his singing style. Strong once again shows his commitment to inhabiting a particular role, although he’s required to be much more subtle than in projects like Succession or The Apprentice. Graham, so good in the Netflix series Adolescence, also does well here in limited scenes.

Bruce Springsteen is an iconic musician whose impact on music history is obvious, but it’s difficult to connect with this particular story about his life. Much like Nebraska itself, Deliver Me from Nowhere is a less-than-crowd-pleasing film that will likely only appeal to hardcore Springsteen fans.

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Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere opens in theaters on October 24.

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